( – promoted by buhdydharma )
Crossposted at Daily Kos
From today’s meeting between President Obama and Senate Democrats today comes this gem . . . .
“If the price of certainty is essentially for us to adopt the exact same proposals that were in place for eight years leading up to the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression — we don’t tinker with health care, let the insurance companies do what they want, we don’t put in place any insurance reforms, we don’t mess with the banks, let them keep on doing what they’re doing now because we don’t want to stir up Wall Street — the result is going to be the same,” he said. “I don’t know why we would expect a different outcome pursuing the exact same policy that got us into this fix in the first place.”
Middle class Americans, Obama said, “are more and more vulnerable, and they have been for the last decade, treading water. And if our response ends up being, you know, because we don’t want to — we don’t want to stir things up here, we’re just going to do the same thing that was being done before, then I don’t know what differentiates us from the other guys. And I don’t know why people would say, boy, we really want to make sure that those Democrats are in Washington fighting for us.”
Bold text added by the diarist
The question that inspired this response from our President and more below the fold.
That response was directed at Sen. Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas who had asked this ridiculous question of the President. Apparently, Blanche missed out on the “Great Republican Retreat” and didn’t get the memo that this President will make you look stupid if you ask a stupid question.
She asked: “Are we willing, as Democrats, not only to reach out to Republicans, but to push back in our own party for people who want extremes, and look for the common ground that’s going to get us the success that we need not only for our constituents, but for our country, in this global community, in this global economy?”
In essence, what Senator Lincoln is saying is that Democrats should abandon their platform and be more like Republicans. The same Republicans who created almost all of the problems we face as a nation today. The same Republicans who the voters rejected overwhelmingly in the last 2 election cycles. If I were writing a book titled “How to lose your base and alienate voters” I would ask Blanche Lincoln to write the foreword.
UPDATE: Check out drafthalter.com and let’s get behind Bill Halter in the Senate primary in Arkansas. Show him some love if you can, because I want him to kick Blanche Lincoln’s (hush your mouth)!For more info on Bill Halter’s primary challenge against Blanche Lincoln please go read and recommend the diary posted by fellow Kossack jsamuel titled Help Us Draft Bill Halter to Challenge Blanche Lincoln!
If we are serious about more and BETTER Dems, this is where we have to start.
I think Obama is starting to get it. Electorally, Democrats can NOT win without the support of their liberal and progressive base. That base will NOT support Democrats come election time if Democrats and their efforts are never more liberal than the most Conservative Democrat in the Senate allows it to be. If liberals and progressives such as myself don’t know what differentiates the Democratic party from the other guys why should we even bother to show up and vote? Of course, I know the answer to that one and you probably do as well, but millions and millions of Democratic voters do not. They will say “Screw it, what’s the difference?” and they will stay home, and Democrats will get their asses kicked in 2010 because they decided to move to the right and kick hippies instead of kicking Conservative ass. We voted for change we can believe in, not change that we watered down until it looked just like the Conservatives were in charge.
When every policy coming out of Washington must receive Conservative approval while liberals and progressives are always forced to accept the “It’s better than nothing” compromise, after a while the activist base of the left that delivered for Democrats in 2006 and 2008 will eventually start to think that the Democratic party just isn’t that into us. The gap in voter enthusiasm between the left and right is not based on a rejection of liberalism by the voters, it is based on the disgust liberals are feeling at watching liberalism being rejected by the Democrats in power.
If you want your left wing base to be fired up and ready to go come election time we have to start seeing some of that change we can believe in. Obama can inspire us. Legislation that represents real change we can believe in inspires us. Conservative sell outs like Evan Bayh, Blanche Lincoln and Joe frigging Lieberman inspires NO BODY. They suck. They suck big time, and if Democrats really want to keep the majorities we gave them in 2006 and 2008 they have to stop pretending that every Dem voter is Ben Nelson or Blanche Lincoln.
Of course, words are nice, but what I and progressives like me really want to see is ACTION. It’s one thing for Obama to say something that rejects centrist Dem Senators calls for capitulation, it’s another thing to DO SOMETHING that shows that Dems are ready to beat Conservatives and not just the hippies and other “left of the lefters” who worked their asses off to get them elected.
After months of watching Joe Lieberman control the debate in the Democratically controlled Senate, watching Bush Blue Dogs fight for Conservative policies and watching the Howard Dean’s of the world get pushed away while the Bart Stupak’s of the world get a pass I am glad to see the “Let’s be more like the Republicans” wing of the Democratic party get a rhetorical shoe thrown at them by President Obama. Sure it ain’t much, but it’s better than nothing, and that is a good start.
I hope to see MORE and BETTER in the near future, and not just words, but ACTION.
Also crossposted at ProgressiveElectorate.com
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Democratic party.
You want to push back against people like me Blanche? I hope you enjoy your primary this year.
And if Dems want to stand any chance of keeping their majorities I would strongly advise them to GO LEFT OR GO HOME.
Do the opposite of what Blanche Lincoln says and you should be just fine.
Follow me on twitter @JesseLaGreca
& it fits on a bumper sticker: GO LEFT OR GO HOME !
Well, you know, sooner or later you have to get off the fence, or be blown off!
Maybe, we’ll see a turning point — remains to be seen!
The best thing I can think of is trying to replace those Dems in the Senate and House, that have essentially betrayed us. We need to be on the lookout for people like Halter. There are others out there, too. In the meantime, I suppose continuing on doing what we’re doing and then some, is all that we have at the moment.
A proviso, however, if this Supreme Court decision re corporations is not overturned or majorly amended, it probably won’t matter diddly squat we do. And guess which ones have the MOST money! A neocon’s “dream mouthpiece” could well be in our future!!!!!
Just yesterday, however, Congresswoman Donna Edwards introduced a Constitutional amendment, together with Congressman John Conyers.
I’m just holding my breath and waiting at this point. not cynical but detached. What do these sorry excuses for representives not understand about the Democratic polls that say people stayed or voted for the truck drivin asshole because the bill did not go far enough or have a PO. blanch Lincoln must be in a freakin time warp and think it’s the nineties when all the corporatist’s did was feel our pain, as they shipped the jobs and money off shore and privatized everything they could lay their hands on. This fix it thing bothers me as their idea of a ‘fix’ is not the kind were looking for. Passing anything won’t cut it people will just get angrier from all the directions they are pointing, right left, ‘moderate’ and crazy.
that this is Obama creating a quote for the media. A way of him still trying to sell hopeyness, and him hoping people will buy it one more time…
So Blanche Lincoln asks a question that would actually require Obama & the Dems. to do what they are expecting of the Repubs, and the Prez. gets defensive.
She relays the sentiment of small business people in her state and he goes off on a tangent. I could see the relevance of much of his response had she actually suggested returning to the actions which caused the problems. But, as is clear from blog postings this evening, the left appears intent on maintaining their inherent underlying view that business, markets, and economy of capitalism are the enemies of the future they would desire. Leftists’ kneejerk response to Obama’s kneejerk response exposes this. Even in light of recent “spontaneity” and seemingly re-found declarations of “openness”, “transparency”, and “bi-partisanship”, these unmet qualifications are ultimately the responsibility of the “other” side.
I wonder how anyone is supposed to deal with a leader who is so sensitive and fragile that he cannot even concede that many small business, capital-risking individuals who are the backbone of our nation’s economy, are aware that few (none, many say) of his administration knows the experience or the challenge of making a regular payroll and risking their own livelihoods weekly.
The backstory of his tirade sounded as if to imply, “Tough shit! Those rednecks are going to have to give up thinkin’ they gonna keep on runnin’ they trucks on gas or heatin’ they shops until we get the smart-grid up for their dumb asses and run it on green power. Plus they gonna have to just wait till cap-n-trade gets installed and they can do their capitalism-based risky payroll-meetin’ behavior on the carbon derivatives market. Screw ’em.”
“There ya’ go, Blanche.”
You can save it alright, but when the time comes to spend it, you better spend it. Unfortunately, the time came and went with Healthcare Reform. That was no small time piece of legislation. It was Gigantical Galactic. His capital went bye bye. Now BO is in big political debt. Ain’t nobody gonna bail him out either.
that after the meeting Rahm told Obama he was “F-ing retarded” to criticize Blue Dogs.
Obama is cutting all American social services, while he’s amping up war.
That’s what he’s doing.
He is not starting to get it.
And you ‘ll never get it, either because you’re a liar, and asshole, or a fool.
All my “hope” is gone..
And I can’t even force myself to entertain the idea that I might someday again be willing to trust that con-artist we call the president.
I’ll bet this helped ramp up DKos delusions that BO is “on our side” though.